Infant Ejected from Vehicle Dies Due to Defective Product

Susy Owen

Attorney

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There is nothing more tragic than an avoidable death of an infant. Tragically, four-month-old Tyler Malcomb died after his mother swerved to avoid a driver who was passing her Suburban illegally. Tyler's Evenflo-manufactured child-safety seat broke in a rollover. When the incident occurred, the "On My Way" seat broke off, and Tyler was ejected about 60 feet from the site of the incident. It is difficult to imagine the horror of your 20 week-old infant child flying through the air to his death.

What makes this even worse, is the fact that in Evenflo's own internal tests showed that the hooks cracked or failed at least 25 percent of the time. The manufacturer was fully aware that in a similar accident 1 in 4 children's seat hooks would not hold up. They know they had a defective product on their hands. How could they put such a product on the market. It would be interesting to know if their children have ever used this product.

In addition to $6.7 million in compensatory damages, the jury awarded the Malcombs $3.7 million in punitive damages, which is the largest wrongful death settlement in Montana's history.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Defective and Dangerous Products.